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After an aggressive attack with your squad, you run back to your base. The enemy is in greater numbers and pinning down everyone, getting right into the base. You quickly fill up your 1000, then as you're unthreading the nozzle to attach a QFD for your SC400 pistol, someone pulls out his Max-D 2000 and kills you. You watch as your fellow hoseman at the other hose is outranged by CPS's and finally gets killed.

Well anyways, this is probably the first time it's being done (as I've never seen it been done), but I just got some PVC fittings from Lows and Home Depot today for creating a special hose unit. The concept was a unit that would:

·Have ball valves for decent flow.
·Quickly be able to switch from shooting to gun filling (including filling SC's), or do both simultaneously. (shooting nozzles often don't work well for filling as they often soak the filler in the process)
·Not break easily. (like the garden hose nozzles do)

Unfortunately, it gets costly. I don't know how much those typical nozzles cost, but all the PVC could get to $5 to $10 or so per unit. Originally, I was going to use 2 ball valves, one for controlling the shooting and the other for controlling filling, but I didn't like the thought of having more money spent and having to get more parts together.

Also, some parts I expected (such as 3 way threaded tees) could not be found at either. However, I did find something that just happened to work with the SC system. It was a male threaded 3/4" plug, with the other end just fitting snuggly onto the nozzle. The next step is to get a large hole into the cap.

Unfortuantely, having only 1 valve has it's problems. The area on the tee for filling has to be plugged up when the hose is just shooting. Also, due to the lack of 3-way threaded tees, we used a 1" to 3/4" male adaptor, one that happened to fit snuggly over the 3/4" tee, so we'll have to use that. However, it probably isn't a good idea to glue that together (especially considering the turbulence it will cause)

Sounds great! I'd have thought this would be an obvious solution to the range and quickfill issues, but I guess it wasn't, for most of us at least.

You should definitely see a good range improvement. I also wouldn't worry too much about the price, as $5-10 isn't too much for a powerful water gun, and hose nozzles are generally about that price (maybe just a little bit cheaper) too. And you don't need more than one of these per refill station.

You don't have to use a big, expensive ball valve for the quickfill part. Even a 1/4" PVC ball valve (if you can find one) would work.

Hmm, yeah, I should've thought to reduce the size for the quickfill portion, though I'd have to increase it again to get the plug to fit in.

If one needs to strip this down for just the QFD, it's pretty simple. Just put the plug right on the3/4" ball valve, which goes on the adapter, then simply open the valve to fill up the SC. (which also works on any other gun of course)

Hmm, I might consider getting more parts, just because I don't want to have to deal with simultaneous filling and shooting. I doubt there's anything smaller than 1/2" lying around either.

As for range, I figured it'd improve after shooting the hose through a water balloon filler. (which I'm not sure how they got straightened out, but they work perfect now; I use them as my standard 3/4" nozzles) The fillers don't fit as well on hoses as they do on PVC though, while the QFD seems to fit nicely on both. The fillers have been used in a game before and offer nice range, but the problem is not having a "trigger".

Anyways, I'll have to see if I can get some improvements as mentioned. If not, I might just have to find and use a solid endcap. Manually blocking the nozzle isn't such a good idea.

Ok, rather than creating a new thread for this, I'll bump it up since I finally got to not only assemble this together, but was able to put it to good use at the last water war. (whose write-up should be coming on shortly)

-VHS Versatile Hose System-

One thing I need to point out, me and my friend have discovered that the SC nozzle can be charged without any sort of hose attachment (homemade nor stock QFD). I'd recommend people to experiment this if all they need is a solution for filling SC's.

Versatile Hose System Mk I & II:

Description and purpose: A PVC hose attachment system designed for great versatility and muiltiple use, and able to quickly switch between those functions during a game. The most common is a system that'll quickly charge SC's, fill "normally", fill balloons, and of course, shoot through a high range nozzle.

Possible setups:

Minimal: Cheapest, but requires lots of un-threading and re-threading to switch between functions.

Full: Switching functions mostly requires some flipping around with the valves.

Base parts list (needed for all configurations):

-3/4" hose adapter (hose female to 3/4 male / 1/2 female)

-3/4" threaded ball valve (one for minimal, 2 for full version)

-(2) 1" slip to 3/4" threaded male adapter

-3/4" tee, with middle end female threaded

-Some sort of 3/4" female threaded nozzle, such as a water balloon filler nozzle. (Which I strongly recommend for low cost, decent range, and ability to fill water balloons of course. If there are stream lamination problems, clear up the nozzle of any extra plastic first)

-3/4" female plug, must be from Home Depot (this is the piece that must be drilled and will serve as a general purpose filler, as well as fill SC's)

! >If a 3/4" plug that'll fit in SC's cannot be found (I recommend bringing something with the SC nozzle to the store to test out parts), perhaps it'd be possible to find another hose adapter (one that goes outward to a male hose thread instead of female like the piece the device starts with) and use that to fill SC's. Such would also be quite useful for other purposes, which makes it recommendable even if you can find the plug. (the plug however, is a cheaper and probably easier solution)

Additional notes: If you know how to work with this stuff, I would suggest configuring this system to how you want it to work. It is possible, with a little creativity, to connect this to remote-activated trap systems (and simultaneously be able to use other functions of the hose at lower pressure) as well as many other possibilities. For cost, the minimal system should be able to meet most needs but obviously still costs more than just using a plain garden hose nozzle and QFD. However, the advantages should make up for this:

I've had good experiences with the plastic quick disconnects (haven't tried the brass) when I did some things with my water rockets, they were easy to remove the male adapter from the female adapter, and I highly recommend them.

In some of the female connectors, they have stops that close after you remove the male fitting, so you could just have a bunch of female adapters on a manifold and a bunch of accessories hooked up to male ends to make it faster to switch them out.

I'm not sure whether or not anyone has tried these (from somewhere I heard that they leaked, and I read that Dusty used them for filling his gun) but I just thought they would be useful in a situation like this. (although the flow might not be too pretty)

Another thing I might add: you could just have portable sprinklers to act as entrance guns. hook them up to a triggered ball valve (sprinkler vale might be good for remote activation)

It is interesting that some of you allow hoses in your wars. In ThunderWars, we believe that it is to powerful to have a hose defending location as they have an unlimited water supply.
Anyway I love the idea. Congrats.
Storm,

Well, from what I can tell, the hoses are only stationed at the base, where people refill. I guess it's meant as something to make sure that, when your vulnerable, you aren't un-armed. It wouldn't make sense for someone to use the hose as a primary weapon; you're right in that aspect though.

...and to C-A_99: What sizes of fittings did you use to make the filling devices? I might make one.

I guess I didn't notice that in my quick look. He probably adapted the tee to fit inside of an adapter. I'm sure you can make the entire thing out of 3/4 inch PVC and fittings but it'll be a little larger.

The conventional tactical flaws to using hose as suppression lies mostly in the inability to fill, lack of range, and the ability to remotely disconnect the hose. This devices intends to take out the first 2, allowing to fill and the nozzle giving good range (but I reckon that it cannot fill while shooting and have good range at the same time), but the 3rd option is always there.

So... lets say the hose was brought up to the treehouse with this device on. The treehouse is near the faucet of the hose, so getting it disconnected will be fairly difficult. Here, you have several options.

First, get a squad under umbrellas and have them turn off and disconnect the hose. Second, go inside the house, to the house's basement, and turn the hoses off there. (going inside is probably against the rules in most cases so this can probably be ruled out) Third, get some water balloons (with a launcher if available) and pound the living crap out of the treehouse.

Now that we have the potential tactical issues/imbalances settled, I was wondering if this article was going to be reposted since I think it would create an interesting addition to the site and help give insight on hoses.

I also thought I'd reiterate the fact that me and my friend have gotten SC's charged up simply by sticking it into a hose w/ no attachments to it. This is simply a quick-fill solution I think people should look into.

If I haven't said so already, reconfiguring the system should work when there are rules prohibit hose-shooting. Just remove the nozzle and it has nearly no range.

Now that we have the potential tactical issues/imbalances settled, I was wondering if this article was going to be reposted since I think it would create an interesting addition to the site and help give insight on hoses.

Sure, I'd love to add it. I was going to add it yesterday but I was caught up in the posting frenzy. It's on the website now. I've also updated the FAQ.